Xbox Series consoles: Why are they so much more expensive now?
Xbox Series consoles and Game Pass subscriptions have seen significant price hikes, with the Series S increasing from R5999 to R8999 and the Series X from R11k to R13999, while Game Pass has risen from R129 to R268 per month. Picture: Michael Sherman/IOL
Image: Michael Sherman/IOL
As an Apple fan, one of the best things about their offerings is that the older products grow cheaper over time. In the gaming industry, and especially with Microsoft Xbox, the opposite is true, and that’s just shameful.
The Xbox Series S and X consoles were released five years ago in November. The lower-spec Series S for 300 US dollars, which works out to around R5100, and the Series X for 500 US dollars, or about R8600. Of course, the price would be slightly more when the devices came to South Africa, but not much more.
I bought my Xbox Series S in March 2023 from Makro for R5999, and now the same model is going for R8999. That’s an increase of R3000 for the same product in less than three years.
If you want to pick up the Series X, it will cost you around R13999 at the moment. I remember considering the fancier Series X version, but at around R11k at the time, I was not prepared to fork out such a sum despite the performance gains. That’s especially since there was around a R5000 price difference between the two models— so I could have bought almost two Series S consoles for the same price.
PlayStation 5 Digital Version Price Hike and Popularity Surge: 75 Million Units Sold by 2025
It’s not just Xbox though, as the base model PlayStation 5 Digital Version has also increased in price by 400 US dollars in 2020 and to 500 in 2025.
PlayStation is the more popular console, with approximately 75 million units sold by 2025, with Xbox selling around 31 million.
Xbox Game Pass Subscription Price Increases: A Gamer’s Perspective
The main attraction of Xbox for years was its GamePass subscription. But that too has increased while offering the same product.
When I first signed up for Xbox Game Pass a couple of years ago when I got my Series S, it was R129 per month. That gave me access to around 100 games, and more new AAA games than I could play at any one time. For example, I downloaded the new Indiana Jones game that goes for around R1100 on the Microsoft Store, for no cost with Game Pass.
It was quite honestly the best value subscription available as a gamer.
Then the first price increase struck, and then without much warning it went up by R70 from R129 per month to R199 monthly in September last year. That was a 53.8% increase.
Yet still, at R200 per month it was still worth it. Now Xbox has announced another 34% increase which equates to R68 for R268 total per month.
That means that in South Africa, I was paying R129 in August last year for the service, and from next month I will be paying over double that.